My first program was in BASIC. I was 6, and had other things to do before I got back on that journey, but the next one was in PHP. By conventional wisdom and c

My first program was in BASIC. I was 6, and had other things to do before I got back on that journey, but the next one was in PHP. By conventional wisdom and common proverbs, my mind should've been mutilated beyond any hope of recovery. (And maybe it is, who knows.) But this conventional wisdom tends to ignore the barrier to entry. The C64 not only booted straight into BASIC, it also came with a book, and that first program that I copied from the book was not some silly "hello world" or a fizzbuzz, it was a piano. It demonstrated to me, that a computer is a means of expressing yourself creatively, and it did so in a form that was digestible to a 6yro. The best first language is the one that comes pre-installed on your computer, with enough example code to get you hooked. (Which is why the iPad / Swift Playgrounds fills me with both hope and dread. But, considering where I came from, mostly hope.)